I Second That Emulsion (a film thread)

hey photo bros, so my gf got me a canonet for my b-day + i got a couple of films developed + some of the pics in the second roll of film are all kind of blown-out in the white parts? and the thing is on the 2nd roll i was using a different type of film as well as a warming filter that i picked up.... so does a warming filter have that effect? or is it the film? or is it something else -
http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_jTfWBcejvU8/TcGqFbgKK3I/AAAAAAAAAyU/0Xax-mtGmSg/s720/84970024.JPG

http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_jTfWBcejvU8/TcGrqeQB6rI/AAAAAAAAAy0/B6MrZEVx2Tg/s720/84970019.JPG

Could well be the scans (basic developing lab scans tend to be extremely high contrast, per above), could be overexposure in the camera (old Canonet meters are a crapshoot). It doesn't look like the scene itself should have exceeded the dynamic range of color negative film, and even overexposed negative should hold some detail - so my money's on the scans.

i got prints tho, and they looked the same... they still do prints straight from negatives right? or maybe not?

Probably not. Prints are made from the quickie machine scans - been a while since optical enlargments were common.

i did not know that!

those images don't look particularly overexposed but I'm no expert with color negs

those lab scans do look pretty bad though

I don't think the lens on the canonet should be diffused like that. Could maybe be smudginess on the filter too? I'm not really sure though. Maybe see if it continues to only come up when you use the filter. Take some shots with and some without and see what happens.
By the way, so far the Summaron looks great. It's a world of difference from the Voigtlander and I really think that lens was what was bothering me about my photos lately.

thanks guys! i'll have a play around. it might be something as simple as being overexposed, i just realised that w/ those photos i was relying on the light meter but w/ the 1st roll (that turned out ok) i had just been using the sunny 16 rule.

sunny 16 is a+. and with color negs it's usually a good idea to overexposed by a stop anyhow. you can also download light meter apps for iPhone and android and they ate surprisiglu accurate

Gifts from a friend - a 1959 Ilford Sportsman II (in lovely leather case)...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2378/5694777542_7511ba676a.jpg

And a 1986 Chinon CE-4 (with 50/1.9 and Tokina 200/3.5 lenses, both of which will go on the Pentax K-1000...)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2306/5694203639_9b5d3e1a03.jpg

The Ilford in particular will be a challenge...

nice - how are the shutter speeds on the ilford?

Well, as you may be able to see, there's three: 1/25, 1/50, 1/200 (plus B). A 45mm f/2.8 lens. "Made in Western Germany". I'll give it a go...

Well, doing periodical B&H browsing yesterday I saw a 35mm f3.5 Summaron for $299 and without thinking bought it. It arrived today and is beautiful (on the outside at least!). I'll have to report back on how it looks! I know the f2.8 is the preferred version but I could not resist the immediacy of getting the thing the next day or the low price.
It is the version made for the M3 bayonet mount without goggles by the way. Meaning it focuses accurately but brings up 50mm framelines. I will have to decide whether I'd prefer to have a tech trim the lug to bring up 35mm framelines or just live with it (35mm framelines on an M2 are pretty much just the whole viewfinder anyway).

― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Wednesday, May 4, 2011 6:20 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark

fyi I've been doing research on the 35mm summaron and uh, sorry to break this to you but it won't focus accurately at close distances without goggles...

You sure about that? This is the first m-mount version of the lens that was manufactured sans-goggles, intended for use with an auxiliary viewfinder (focusing through the built-in viewfinder with the 50mm framelines pulled up). The goggled version came later which notoriously will not focus correctly if they are removed (and which might be more common).

That's my understanding anyway. I'll have to get back to you as I get more rolls back, but so far I haven't had any focusing issues.

hmm, maybe you're right. seems there were a lot of versions of this lens made. if I were you I'd do some close focus tests and see if anything's amiss.

I think I get back a couple of tightly and closely focused wide open photos tomorow, so I'll see what I've got, but I'm feeling optimistic! I think I have a few already that meet the criteria that are fine.
The real question is whether to leave the lens as is, or shave it to bring up 35mm framelines. I guess I'd be destroying any collector value, but it's not really a collector's lens. On the other hand it isn't that much trouble to manual trigger 35mm framelines when I *really* need them. Tough call.

tape the lever in place!

I guess an easy way to check is by looking at the minimum focus - iirc the goggle'd ones go down to .65m

Ah, this one only goes down to 1 meter.
Yeah, I'll keep then lens with the 50mm framelines and will only get it altered if I realize, after a long time, that it's absolutely necessary. I think having the 50mm lines actually assists a bit with framing anyway. Sometimes with 35mm lines it's too easy to get lazy and feel discreet by keeping the subject too close to the edge of the frame. 50mm lines with at 35mm lens keep me honest about actually pointing the camera at the intended target instead of chickening out. And I'm more likely to hold it level in situations where that's important. AND as mentioned before, the full viewfinder is basically a 35mm frameline anyway.

Focus checks out! Love the lens!

Here's a photo from my current M2/35mm Summicron/Plustek Opticfilm scanner combo. With $3 per roll for develop only, taking pictures is now cheap!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3051/5700292739_051f4f32ee_z.jpg

Yikes! That's Summaron not Summicron. I'm not made of money.

Took a long walk yesterday from the West Village up 5th Ave. and some side streets to the Queensboro Bridge. Finished a roll in the Leica, then loaded and shot a roll in the Pentax. Lots of candid pictures, places that were new to me, people in what I thought was interesting light. Felt like I was getting close/bold etc.
Today I realized I misloaded the roll and didn't expose any film!

We've all done this right? It's crushing when it happens.

Ordered 25 rolls of Arista-branded Tri-X ($2.69/roll!) plus 5 rolls apiece of medium-format Provia 100 and 400X from Freestyle. I hadn't realized how crazy color film prices had gotten - time to start hunting for out of date film.

tri-x is for kids

:o

MIDS!

― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Tuesday, April 5, 2011 8:56 PM (6 months ago) Bookmark

btw this post explains so much about yr aesthetic dude, i love it

tri-x is for kids

was really agitating for this as ILP board slogan but i know it is facing down an establishment pick

TRI-X IS THE GREATEST FILM OF ALL TIME AND YOU WILL SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTHS

y'all

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tZLFn1V1zn4/TbQ263OGAqI/AAAAAAAAAdk/dvvpA89aGEU/s1600/Trix.jpg

was just kidding, co-sign one trillion percent on tri-x (i have only tried 400?, should i try others?, there are others right), i love it. i bought a roll today. it is so 'luminous'.

They used to make a Tri-X Professional in 120 and 4x5, but I think that's been completely discontinued. TX400 is the only Tri-X game in town (until Kodak goes bankrupt)
Plus-X is the old-school slow speed Kodak film.

plus-x is hard to find!

they used to make a tri-x PAN. not sure what that was about.

Tri-X Pan is the old name for Tri-X - pan just stands for panchromatic. They dropped that with one of the later formulations.

Tri-X Pro was 320 ISO instead of 400, I don't know what the other differences were, I never used it.

oh okay. i was looking at expired film on ebay (i had not done this before it is interesting) & felt like i'd seen tri-x 1000 or something, i guess it was a diff kodak film. TY. long live 400 anyway, it's everything i want.

TMZ3200, which is kind of sucky. If you need 1600 ISO, pushing Tri-X or HP5 works better IMO.

Going to buy some HP5, actually, to push to 1600 for the wedding I'm officiating Sunday. Keeps me from having to dance at the reception.

would you not use ilford delta, or neopan 1600, in that case? i think they're both nice films if you use them right, the biggest factor is that SUPER HI CONTRAST SHADOWY BW PHOTOGRAPHY is sorta played out atm. or is this if you're trying to get something comparable, midtones &c

HP5 pushed has finer grain and nicer tonality (IMO) than the Delta/TMax3200 films. I used to enjoy using that with a Holga & direct flash in the middle of mosh pits. (negatives all disappeared now, sadly)

We all knew this was coming, right?
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/eastman-kodak-files-for-bankruptcy/

Whenever there is news like this, discussion on a lot of photo forums starts getting all "ha, nothing to worry about! their film division as actually profitable! they recently unveiled new film types! I don't see film dying off anytime soon! there will be a huge market for whichever company is left! they just need to cut the fat and focus on their film division! etc. etc. etc."

I think these folks are deceiving themselves. These reassuring discussions occur so often (every time another film product is discontinued, which is very frequent!) that it's absurd.

I'm definitely a film pessimist.

I swear if the news tomorrow was that 99% of all film types were discontinued, discussion board dudes would be all "actually, this is great news! I see a robust future for film! great consolidation strategy!" Totally delusional.

i guess what i hope happens with this is what i assume - & i haven't totally been paying attention bc it's not my field - happened w/polaroid; has happened to some degree with film (partic its ~weirder~ variants) in general; has been pronounced w/vinyl; & which you sometimes see when a chocolate bar which people had fond childhood memories of is eventually retired: that there will be some kinda of resurgence in reaction to a decline. people ironically make petitions demanding production of the twist bar be resumed and redoubled, it forming such a critical part of the fabric of the nation. so i hope that in response to an increased divide between film and digital, people's investment in film will be matched by attempts to provide for people on that scale. but what's probably worrying is that film is like hi-tec shit, right? & so with stuff like kodachrome it's retired for whatever practical reason, & isn't the kinda thing that can just be knocked up by enthusiasts in basements.

i just hope you can get one of the basic, staple types of film in fifteen years, whether it's from a weird thing like the polaroid project or whatever. not to fetishise the variety and 'unknown' of film photography but i do feel like, now at least, part of shooting film is going to mean working with what's there and trying to explore & extend the possibilities of that, which maybe is different from having been able to rely on working sensibly with your preferred tools. but maybe it will be that or nothing.

appreciating the mustard-enthusiast-style window into what it's like in internet film rabbit holes, btw, i've never really checked those places

the other prob with people's nostalgia prompting a resurgence of a product from childhood thing is that a ton of people *already* think film is dead! like I can't count how many times people will say to me on the street, "wow you can still buy film?? that's crazy!"
prob just gonna have kinda expensive hobbyist black and white eventually right?

the inevitable switch to digital is actually kind of exciting for me, but it's going to be expensive (I rarely have much money for electronics).

Odds are, things will shake out over the next few years leaving a couple of options in B&W film - maybe just Ilford and one of the cheaper Foma/etc. types. Color will probably die (unless Fuji keeps it going as a labor of love), particularly if the movie industry stops buying film completely.

B&W film is supposedly fairly easy to make on an industrial scale, unlike color, so I think that's pretty safe for our lifetimes in one way or another.

/\/\/\ This. I am definitely interested in seeing ways in which film can be manufactured by an "amateur".

I am still a film guy and will still definitely shoot film as long as I can find it, even though I am now in DSLR-land (somewhat sceptically). Whether it is another 10, 5, 2 years, I plan to go all out and enjoy it.

Whenever there is news like this, discussion on a lot of photo forums starts getting all "ha, nothing to worry about! their film division as actually profitable! they recently unveiled new film types! I don't see film dying off anytime soon! there will be a huge market for whichever company is left! they just need to cut the fat and focus on their film division! etc. etc. etc."

I think these folks are deceiving themselves. These reassuring discussions occur so often (every time another film product is discontinued, which is very frequent!) that it's absurd.

― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Thursday, January 19, 2012 10:18 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

I'm a film optimist - I have to be! so much money invested in equipment. but here's my understanding:

-kodak's film division is profitable. kodak's bankruptcy doesn't mean the end of kodak - perhaps after restructuring they'll have a more sustainable model.
-although film divisions can be profitable, compared to the profit gained from digital or other areas of photography, the profits are minuscule. I remember reading about a breakdown of fuji's financial report (on some photography forum) where it was said that fuji's film division accounted for like, 1% of its total profit. or maybe it was less than 1%.

what are my arguments that film will live on? idk, some sense of obligation on the part of photography companies, devotion to the tradition. sigh

I feel like ilford is an example that yes, a company can be profitable and make its primary business about photography. I just wonder if film has truly bottomed yet in 2012, or if it can bottom still further. I wonder if hipsters will buy black and white film if/when color film stops being made.

I will be very sad if, in 10 years, I'm only able to shoot lomo brand black and white film in my cameras. *_*

sense of obligation on the part of photography companies, devotion to the tradition

yikes we're all screwed.
thing is I think the *marginal* profitability of, say, kodak's film division is down to motion pictures, and that is going to disappear in an instant. I also think it can't be "spun off" very easily since it depends on kodak's (the big company for which film is a minuscule interest) chemical resources etc. not easy to spin all that off.

the thing is, really, ultimately, as much as I love film, this doesn't really even register as a human tragedy or anything. just a format/medium change. I'll still be taking pictures.

I just want to end to be delayed as much as possible.

halp

Just tried rewinding the Leica, and noticed that it stopped resisting really quickly. Searched, was informed that maybe the lead had never caught appropriately, and had maybe not shot anything. Popped the bottom off, saw film, panicked, closed it up. What happened??